Reaching for a Star
by The Might of Liechtenstein
Summary: Canonverse AU. Petra survives the encounter with the female Titan, but is severely injured by it, in body and mind. Levi refuses to give up on her, and his comrades can do little but look on as he tries to reach out to someone who is all but dead already, remembering the life he shared with her before the 57th expedition beyond the walls.
1. Chapter 1: A Departure Without Goodbyes

**Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin or any of its characters. All rights belong to Hajime Isayama.**

 **OOC: this is my first fanfic (and will be a multi-chapter story), so please leave reviews and tell me how I can improve. I'm doing my best to write a LevixPetra story that's not completely AU and doesn't end at Crushing Blow, so I hope you like it. :)**

Chapter 1: A Departure Without Goodbyes

He flew through the forest of giant trees, his eyes scanning the foliage for signs of conflict, danger, or Eren. Finding the titan shifter was a simple task, for all Levi had to do was follow the sound of the titan's roars. The difficult part, naturally, was seeing the bodies of the soldiers - _his_ soldiers, who he should have protected - decorating the forest as he traversed through it, their corpses positioned like baubles arranged outside a shop front by a particularly jovial merchant.

One by one, he passed them, and each body sent three knives through his heart - one for the blow of losing them, another for a painful reminder of his past that their corpse gave him and the third for fostering a fear that the rest of his squad would also be deceased. _Gunther, Eld, Oluo._ One by one, the little sparks of light in his life dimmed. He had told himself that this would not happen; that he would not let this happen. He was wrong.

 _One, by one, by one…_ he thought despondently, hoping against hope that he would not see a fourth body. Being humanity's strongest, he refused to show any emotion where he could help it - he knew that it would not do for others to see, and there was no time for grieving while he had a mission to complete - but the next corpse, if it was a corpse, would probably cause him to break down.

 _That's not true,_ Levi reminded himself, _I'm stronger now than I was the last time this happened. This time, I will not lose my composure. This time…_ As his fears started to take control of him, he was forced to remember something he'd spent 10 years learning to forget.

—

It was when he had made his first kill. Not a titan kill - a human kill. A murder. Levi was now a murderer, at the tender age of 12. A street fight that his adopted father had managed to get him into through his habit of attracting dangeorus attention had ended with a grown man's death, his blood on Levi's blade.

Oblivious to the somewhat shocked faces of passers by - almost all of whom were involved in shady dealings anyway, and were not usually shocked by this sort of thing (only surprised that the murder had been carried out by someone so young) - Levi looked around for his adoptive father, and, of Kenny, there was no sign.

He began to panic, searching frantically for the man, down alleyways, street corners, and the dens of the criminal underworld that he'd been inducted into. As night fell - or as Levi thought night fell, at least, having access to only a vague sense of time without sunlight in the Underground District - he made his way back to the home he'd shared with Kenny for so long, hoping that he would find his mentor, who meant the world to him even if he was a brutal, violent and sadistic person.

Again, he was disappointed, and found no-one there. However, in the corner of the sparse room in which he used to sleep, he found a crumpled paper note. It read:

 _ **Levi,**_

 _ **The fighting skills you demonstrated today impressed me. I have trained you sufficiently so that you can survive, and not die a pathetic death like your mother did. One day, you may find out about her, and about me, and perhaps we may meet again, but for now, I must leave you.**_

 _ **I have my own reasons to do so, and keep most of them to myself. But know this: this is my final lesson to you. The people in you life who you are attached to, who you care about - in other words, those to whom you open up and make yourself vulnerable - will abandon you. They may attempt to kill you, they may die, they may just walk away. One thing is certain in this world, and that is death.**_

 _ **The people you love will leave you without saying goodbye.**_

 _ **That is why I must leave you now, so that you can learn while you are still young what that pain feels like, so that you can remember never to open yourself up to anyone else ever again. Don**_ _ **'**_ _ **t make your mistake twice, Levi. Learn from this, and survive.**_

 _ **Regards,**_

 _ **Kenny Ackerman.**_

Levi didn't fully understand why his adoptive father had done this to him, but his abandonment shook the young boy. He sat down in the abandoned hut that he had called home, and began to cry, his falling tears obscuring Kenny's message. It was symbolic of what was to come, because when it mattered, he failed to see its meaning and heed its advice before it was too late.

—

As he whizzed through the trees, his 3DMG taking him closer and closer towards the distinct sound of Eren's roar, he thought he saw the shadow of someone he once knew lying against a tree trunk. He tried to beg to whatever deity might watch over this cruel world that it had only been a figment of his imagination, but dismissed his own attempt to do so as folly. He knew how to deal with this. After it had happened to him a second time, he would be fully prepared for the deaths of loved ones. Even if he had failed to shut them out once again, he would at least be used to the experience of death.

He would not break - he could not afford to break - when he saw her. He lowered himself down slowly towards Petra. Before he could even recognise her, he was already seeing someone else's face where hers was obscured in the inky blackness of the foliage of the forest.

—

The face was Isabel Magnolia's: his little sister, whom he had vowed - internally, of course - to protect. Farlan's body was lying nearby. The twin impacts of their death did not hit him twice as hard as one would - it hit him exponentially harder. The two crutches he'd grown used to standing on throughout his life had fallen under him, and he hit the cold, hard ground of reality painfully as he stood, devastated, before the vanquished titan.

He had opened himself up to these two, without realising it. He'd combined his efforts with Farlan's to help the impoverished citizens of the Underground District, providing food and shelter to poor souls such as Jan, and, some time later, Isabel had embedded herself deep into their brotherhood, fitting in naturally with the group.

In that district as a child, Levi had done terrible things, but these two had redeemed him, and dragged him back from the abyss of despair and thuggish violence. One day, while stealing supplies with his two closest friends, who were like siblings to him, he realised he'd allowed them to breach the defences of his cold character, and had dismissed the lesson's of Kenny's letter.

The thought of that letter had filled him with bitterness. Since he'd been abandoned by the man, Levi had grown to hate his adoptive father, forming the opinion that his moral outlook was both twisted and ignorant. What did he know of companionship, after all? Who was he to say that Levi's allies would leave him in his hour of need?

Levi, at the time, was confident of his own abilities, but also confident of those of his friends. They'd pull through, Kenny's warning be damned. He would live his life to the full, and he wouldn't let anyone take Farlan, Isabel, and their dreams of surface citizenship away from him.

Due to this, when he set off to kill Erwin, he was the one to abandon them to their fate. He felt guilty about it in the aftermath of their deaths, but the emotion he mainly felt was humiliation. Humiliation, at not being able to defy the laws of life set out in Kenny's twisted world. Humiliation, at realising that Kenny's lessons, though infused by warped morality, were true. Humiliation, at realising that by befriending Isabel and Farlan, he'd made himself vulnerable, and weak.

After crying over their corpses, after digging their graves, after feeling the same emotions - only on a much more severe scale, of course - as the ones he'd felt when Kenny abandoned him, he resolved never to be weak again. He would be strong, humanity's strongest soldier if he could be, and he would follow the code given to him by his adoptive father when he was a young boy. It was how Kenny survived, and it would be how Levi survived.

He would never have to feel regret again about his loved ones leaving his life without saying goodbye.

—

Levi lowered himself, painfully slowly, towards the body of the woman he'd known and loved so dearly. He still didn't really know how she'd managed to fool him, and breach his defences; he still didn't quite understand how she had managed to become more than a close friend, despite his resolution not to let that happen to him ever again.

All that mattered was that Petra had been able to do so. Her radiant smile, which seemed to light up even the darkest of rooms, the grace with which she moved through the air, her wit, sharper than any blade; most of all, the knowledge that they shared the same feelings towards each other. The struggle to resist this was one battle that humanity's strongest soldier could not win.

When he eventually came to terms with his own feelings, after cursing himself for abandoning Kenny's teachings again, he rather enjoyed his defeat, and he thought she did too. His natural ability to delude himself had ensured that, from then on, their lives became more intertwined ever more easily, and, with his own internal walls smashed open by Petra, the others - Oluo, Eld, Gunther and even Hange - rushed through the breach into the complex mix of emotions that was his life.

This time, he had told himself on countless occasions, they could really trust each other; this time, he had found friends that he could rely on no matter the situation. If they died, it would be because they faced a foe so great that the best of humanity could not beat it even if they stood firm together, or so Levi reasoned, and so he would die alongside his comrades. He was ready for a glorious death in battle with his squad, and he speculated that he might even be able to cope with outlasting them, so long as he got the chance to bid them farewell after the fighting was over.

Once again, Kenny was proved right, and Levi was proved wrong. They had died without him - he couldn't help but imagine that they had been alone, afraid and in great pain - and they had left him wordlessly.

He cursed himself internally for failing to live by the code he'd sworn to follow to his grave, for now he would once more feel sadness at someone leaving without saying goodbye.

When he reached her, after glancing around to ensure that no-one was nearby, he allowed himself a mere moment - a few seconds, at most, given the urgent nature of the mission he had to continue with - to check that Petra really was dead.

As he looked down at the body, its head tilted upwards towards him - strong, noble, and yet so frail - he refused to cry. He was humanity's strongest soldier, and he would dishonour the sacrifice made by his comrades today if he did. Tears welled up to his eyes, but stayed there. They would not fall; he knew it.

He was familiar with death now, and so he greeted it like an old acquaintance, without a loud outburst of rage or a cry of grief. _How rude,_ he thought to himself, smiling ruefully at Petra, _you_ _'_ _ve departed without saying farewell._ He prepared to fly away on his wings of freedom, which now seemed heavy with a fresh burden of sorrows.

And then, as if death was determined to surprise him despite his familiarity with it, Levi noticed something, and his eyes widened in shock. _No, it can_ _'_ _t be_ _…_ he reasoned internally. _That_ _'_ _s_ _…_ _not_ _…_ _possible_ _…_

Petra was still breathing.


	2. Chapter 2: First Impressions

**Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin or any of its characters. All rights belong to Hajime Isayama.**

 **OOC: readers and reviewers, thanks for taking the time to have a look at this story and comment on it. You make this website what it is today.**

Chapter 2: First Impressions

Levi's first impression of the fallen soldier below him was that she was dead. That was proved wrong within moments of his arrival, as he noticed Petra's breathing. Her chest went up and down in slow and laboured breaths, pressed into the tree trunk that he'd mistaken for her deathbed.

It was a miracle that she had survived this long. Her blood coated the bole and pooled around her feet, and Levi could tell that the injuries to her head and chest, although partially obscured from his sight by the tree, were clearly severe.

Struggling to maintain control of his emotions at the sight of her clinging to life in a wretched state, he swung slightly to the right, released his grappling hooks and dropped to the forest floor to take a closer look at her wounds. He was horrified at what had happened to her, but he was also relieved, and his mind was flooded with disbelief. How had she survived?

 _More importantly, how will she be able to live in the future?_ a voice asked within his mind.

The sound of furious roars and titanic fists smashing into trees forced him to remind himself that he was examining Petra's condition on borrowed time. One part of his mind urged him to leave this place now and focus on the mission as he had been instructed to by his commander, but Erwin assigned him to this task knowing that Levi would never leave a living soldier behind. The captain resolved to carry out the briefest of inspections before setting off to find Eren.

The only other sound, besides the fighting, that Levi heard was a rasping breath, a single thin thread by which Petra clung onto the remains of her life. He did his best to emulate Commander Erwin and approach the difficult task ahead with a highly analytical, emotionless approach. He would be strong; he had to be strong. He did not know how much was staked on him keeping control of himself, but enough was to force him to do so.

The first thing he noticed was that her eyes were open, but unseeing.

 _Maybe she_ _'_ _s blind._

The thought was unhelpful and unwanted, but nonetheless it made its way into Levi's brain effortlessly, before he refused to consider it. Irresponsible speculation was not going to help anyone.

She didn't seem to have registered his presence, which meant she mustn't have heard his 3DMG either.

 _Deaf, too._

Levi couldn't work out why this was happening to him. A disciplined soldier, he'd been used to shielding himself from harmful thoughts for prolonged periods of time; perhaps it was the deaths of Oluo, Eld and Gunther that made him vulnerable to them now. _It_ _'_ _s entirely possible that she_ _'_ _s just temporarily unconscious,_ he reassured himself. _We can_ _'_ _t be sure of anything until_ _…_ _unless_ _…_ _she makes it to a hospital behind the walls._

 _Unless._

That last dark thought had forced itself into his mind in milliseconds. He was beginning to panic. What if it was already too late for Petra? What if he had arrived only to watch her die? His first impression of her had been that she was already dead. The very air around her was saturated with morbidity, and she reeked of spilt lifeblood.

Casting his mind back for a second to dispel these ominous speculations to stop the shaking of his hands and allow him to continue with the inspection, Levi reminded himself of his initial impression of Petra: not here, not now, but when they first met.

—

It was a hot summer's day, in the year 847. The sun shone down benevolently upon the people within the walls, warming their souls as the carefree children of Wall Rose and Wall Sina frolicked in the daylight. Across the walled kingdom, the weather was largely idyllic: crisp cool air combined with the heat of the sun made for the perfect combination. The mood within the kingdom was largely optimistic: things were getting better. The refugee crisis which had once severely depleted the food stocks of every village, town and city within the walls had abated; people from Wall Maria had settled down and built new lives; political stability had been restored in the years following the fall of Wall Maria. This age of optimism was arguably the ideal time, therefore, for the military to sit back, rest on its laurels, and do little but form contingency plans and test them, in case Wall Rose was breached.

Erwin Smith, the commander of the Survey Corps, intended to do no such thing. Determined to take back Wall Maria, he had been caching supplies, establishing military routes and leading scouting expedition after scouting expedition into titan territory. Thus, it was on this day that the Survey Corps were hard at work preparing for their first expedition beyond the walls in months, with the aim of locating ideal strongholds within Wall Maria from which a counterattack on the titans could be launched. The new recruits, in particular, were receiving extra attention.

 _Well, not entirely new anymore,_ Levi thought to himself, as he manoeuvred past another wooden titan, slicing its 'neck' as he did so. They had been training for several months within the Survey Corps, and had once again found themselves, along with the rest of the troops, in the woodlands of the training grounds, fighting slow-moving but cleverly engineered giant puppets.

It was undoubtedly a useful exercise for the newer soldiers, but ultimately it was of little benefit to an experienced soldier like Levi, who was more likely to be deployed against an unpredictable aberrant (which, of course, could not be simulated by a collection of planks and pulleys) than a normal titan. _Whatever_ _'_ _normal_ _'_ _means in the context of man-eating monsters who require no organic sustenance, anyway,_ he reflected.

As a senior officer, albeit one outside the traditional command structure, Levi was entrusted with observance of the newer soldiers as well as training himself. Erwin valued the judgement of his inner circle, and needed to know the strengths and weaknesses of every member of the Survey Corps. After all, the commander's lifelong goal was to find the truths behind the mysteries of the titans and humanity, and knowledge was most definitely power that Erwin Smith valued.

As he moved from treetop to treetop, glancing down at the soldiers below him to scrutinise their progress and occasionally dropping from above to slice the artificial nape of a wooden titan, Levi recognised the usual types of soldiers he'd become accustomed to seeing over his last few years in the Survey Corps.

There were the weak points - at least, that was how Levi had always thought of them - who had barely scraped through training and lagged significantly behind the rest of their colleagues in terms of military prowess. Sometimes, these soldiers would return from an expedition with new determination and improve their skills to a point where they surpassed peers that they previously did not rival; most often, they were the first, and most likely, to die. They struggled in the forest beneath Levi, their blades not cutting very deep into the fake titans' necks when they did manage to land a hit on one of the artificial giants.

There were the typical soldiers meeting mixed success in their endeavours below Levi's position. Their names were quickly forgotten in the mists of time once they died, as they so often did little to stand out from the rest of their colleagues in the Survey Corps, but their contribution to humanity would not be lost. These soldiers, who graduated from training without standing out in a good or bad way, made up the vast majority of the soldiers within this faction of the military. What made them heroes were not their skills, but their bravery in offering up their lives in sacrifice to the cause of reclaiming humanity's birth right, the world outside the walls.

Then there were the mavericks: appalling team players who, no matter how skilled, always managed to endanger everyone around them. Formation was key to the Survey Corps' survival and success, and, the worse these soldiers coordinated with others, the more likely they were to be assigned to the edge of the formation, where death was more a more common but less significant occurrence for the survival of the rest of the troops. Levi detested them, although only a few years ago he'd been one of them, riding out of formation alongside his friends from the Underground District.

Last, but not least, there were the prodigies. He'd only seen a few in his lifetime, but they were invaluable military assets, each and every one of them. Their names would be the ones to go down in history, not that they would be worrying about that by the end of their lives. Conceivably, these soldiers might even be able to reach retirement age without dying, although that was unlikely even for the finest troops of humanity.

 _There are none here amongst the new soldiers,_ he thought to himself, _but what was I expecting?_

Standing on a sturdy branch, he absent-mindedly watched as a group of new soldiers trekking through a clearing were ambushed by four wooden titans drawn towards them via concealed tracks on the forest floor. The constructs had emerged from the tree line and surrounded the soldiers on all sides, so that they were effectively trapped. _They shouldn_ _'_ _t have gone into a clearing, where 3DMG is less effective, without having sentries at its edges._ They would be unable to escape from their ever-shrinking encircled position without getting so close to a titan's hand that, were this a real battle, they would be dead. _It seems that Moblit is finally having some fun today, pulling off a clever trick like that_ _…_ Levi knew that Moblit Berner had probably been extremely bored by his mind-numbing task up until now: slightly changing the positioning of timber structures for hours on end provided no exercise for the mind, body or spirit.

As was standard procedure in these exercises, when the newcomers struggled, the veterans would arrive on the scene to provide help. Gunther, Eld and Oluo flew quickly towards the encroaching titans, and did what they could, slicing three artificial napes. The fourth titan, however, was going to reach the new soldiers before Squad Levi could do so.

Suddenly, a shock of ginger hair caught his eye, as it came hurtling out of the forest, with one destination and one only in its sights. _Excellent precision,_ Levi reflected, _no unnecessary movements. Near perfect balance._

The soldier who had just emerged from the woodland spun mid-air as it approached its target and then struck, her blades tearing a massive chunk out of the titan's neck.

Studying the soldier's progress, Levi mentally noted their most recent achievements today.

 _Timely arrival, check_ _…_ _a few seconds later, give or take one, these soldiers would have been eaten outside the walls._

 _Maximum strike depth on one of these synthetic napes has been achieved, check._

It was true: the wood beneath the painted nape was now visible, which meant that she'd cut right through it.

 _Advanced manoeuvre executed with excellent form, check._

This woman's skills had piqued his curiousity. Levi had to admit to himself that he might have come too soon to the conclusion that there were no prodigies amongst the latest batch of soldiers.

As she finished her manoeuvre, she turned around once more, the sunlight catching her face. Her expression was determined, committed, and attentive; _all brilliant qualities in a soldier,_ Levi cogitated. Try as he might, he couldn't help but notice the way her hair glistened in the sun, the way her eyes shone, the way she held her head up high, proud and strong.

He was notified of his lingering gaze by a creaking sound that snapped him back into reality, but he was alerted to this too late to do much about it. He leapt into the air, doing the best he could to avoid the oncoming wooden titan, but this time, his best was not enough.

The construct's hand hit Levi with a heavy thumping sound, knocking him from his position in the air. He fell from branch to branch, each proving more and more fragile, and they broke his fall, albeit painfully, to a forest floor coated with a soft bedding of leaves.

 _Ouch. Well, that could have been worse,_ Levi thought to himself, _Moblit is having a field day._ He cringed at the thought of his contemporaries finding out that he, humanity's strongest soldier, had been toppled from his perch by a wooden titan, of all things, but decided that he'd just have to frown and bear what was going to be a decidedly shitty day.

After a few moments lying in pain on the ground, he made his first attempt to get up. His body felt bruised all over, but nothing was broken. _Darn it, Moblit_ _…_ _you only bowled me over because you knew you could get away with it in this part of the forest._

Levi knew this was probably true. If one had to sit all day in the forest controlling constructs, one might study their environs carefully, to see how they could make use of it at a later date. Moblit must have done something along these lines, Levi reckoned.

His first attempt failed. _Too quick, and too self-confident,_ the captain berated himself. He groaned quietly, and lay back down, preparing to make a second attempt when he heard running footsteps. The first face to appear above his was Oluo's. As if they were a trio of grotesque gargoyles, Eld and Gunther followed him, and the three stood around him in a circle.

"Heh, you got pretty battered by that monster," was Oluo's first comment on the matter. Like the other two, he was grinning from ear to ear. They weren't going to let him forget about this incident for at least a week, and Levi knew it.

"Stop it," Levi growled, preempting a follow-up remark.

"Yeah, these wooden titans can be tough," Eld mocked gently.

"I told you to stop it," Levi retorted grumpily, "that's an order."

"Of course, sir, momentarily," Gunther responded, "but I do wonder how humanity can dare to stand against these terrifying and deadly creatures."

Levi gave Gunther a glare that promised his subordinate a painful death. The captain's day was going from bad to worse.

 _More footsteps,_ Levi thought to himself as he heard them, _sweet Sina, it must be Mike or Hange running over to have a laugh. I really hoped that they didn_ _'_ _t see the incident_ _…_

The face that appeared over him was neither Mike's nor Hange's, however; nor was it Nanaba's or Erwin's. _It_ _'_ _s her,_ Levi realized, looking up at the face of the prodigy above him as she – unlike the three soldiers currently in Squad Levi – bent down on one knee to get a closer look at him. She was clearly quite concerned. "Are you hurt, captain?" she asked. Everyone in the Survey Corps knew who he was, even if they had only seen him from a distance.

"I'm alright," he murmured weakly, before standing groggily to his feet. "Congratulations on the exemplary performance out there, soldier. As a witness to it, I must tell you that in battle, that move would have been a life-saver."

Levi heard Gunther mutter something about a rookie's move being better than his captain's useless combat form today, and decided to ignore the comment.

"Oh, you saw that, sir? I just thought that it was a normal part of the exercise," she replied quietly, clearly embarrassed by the praise being heaped on her by the captain.

Levi raised an eyebrow at her statement. "If that was normal amongst our troops, and believe me when I say this, there would be no titans on the planet right now. What's your name, soldier?"

"Petra. Petra Ral," she replied quickly.

"Excellent work, Petra Ral," Levi responded, repeating the name over and over again in his mind, "you are dismissed." He'd need to remember it for later, when her first expedition began. He resolved to ensure this talented soldier didn't die… _in time, if she fares well in the upcoming mission beyond the walls, it is not inconceivable that she may quickly rise through the ranks._

 _Not bad for a first impression, Petra Ral. Not bad at all._ Perhaps, Levi thought to himself, this day wouldn't be entirely ruined by his fall.

Things had changed so much since Levi first met Petra, but their companionship hadn't got off to a bad start. Turning his mind back to the grim task of analysis before him, Levi looked at Petra again. _The tree seems to be restricting her breathing._

Gently, he took her under the arms – afraid that the once-robust soldier would shatter like fragile glass at his touch – and pulled her back from the tree. He did his best to avoid looking at her injuries for the time being, instead, opting to lay her down softly, her injured back against the forest floor, where she could breathe more easily without being pressed against a tree trunk.

Levi closed his eyes, and listened to the sound of Petra's shallow breathing. He noticed that in the moments after she was removed from her original position, her constricted breathing deepened a little bit, and became slightly less raspy. _That's better,_ he thought to himself, feeling a warm glow in his heart at experiencing the first positive change in her condition since he'd found her.

He braced himself for an appalling sight – there was no avoiding the fact that he had to pay attention to her chest and head injuries, to see just how severe they were – and opened his eyes. It was then that the first of the tears fell from his eyes.

Petra was a sorry sight now, no longer the proud young soldier that Levi had spotted on that fateful day all those years ago. He carefully brushed a lock of bloodied hair out of her face, wincing at the sight of a nasty cut beneath it on her head. There was nothing that he could do about it now, so he moved onto the next injury.

It was one of those rare moments in Levi's life where he felt powerless. He could slay the fiercest of titans, he could survive the most brutal of battles, and he could brave the most terrifying of dangers, but now, he could not offer Petra much help. _I'll just have to hope that her head wasn't too badly hit,_ Levi thought to himself.

Blood had soaked right through her shirt around her chest and abdomen. Again, there was little Levi could do now to treat the wound, so he took off his cloak, wrapping it around her like an excessively large bandage. It would soak up any excess blood, and hopefully restrict the outward flow of more of the vital liquid from Petra's wounded form, he hoped.

Levi panicked, not able to think of anything else he could do to help her, but his fearful introspection was soon interrupted by the sound of roaring. He was tending to his nearest and dearest on borrowed time. Not his time, not her time, but the mission's time.

He could not abandon his mission, even if it meant he had to leave Petra when she was at her most vulnerable. Forcing back any more tears, Levi leant down to plant a kiss on Petra's forehead, before getting to his feet. "Stay alive, Petra," he whispered in a hoarse tone wracked with angst, "I'll be back as soon as I can be."

With these words, he turned around without looking back. He was reluctant to leave her: he was afraid she would die due to her injuries while he was gone, or worse, be consumed by a titan, but he had to dismiss all doubts and regrets. His duty now was to push these things aside in his mind, and focus on assisting in the capture of the female titan.

He intended to return here as soon as this task was complete – if it could be completed – but as he latched onto another tree with his 3DMG and prepared to make his way off into the forest towards the sounds of combat, he received a chilling reminder of his previous abandonment. He'd left his friends alone and vulnerable in the mist to hunt down Erwin Smith, and they had died while he was gone.

He could not afford for that to happen again, so, with a burst of gas and speed, he continued his journey towards the one who'd killed his soldiers, and the person she was hunting, and hoped that nothing would happen to Petra while he was gone. As he left the area, he turned his face around to look at her one last time and to avoid regret, so that if she really was going to die, he'd have one last memory to treasure.

Giving a final glance to the prone form of the most cherished person in his life, Levi's breath hitched as he was struck by the weakness of humanity and the futility of its struggle personified by her.

 _Please, Petra_ _…_ _please stay alive._

With a strange concoction of hope and terror fuelling his brain, Levi turned his face away from her and hurled himself into the fray once more.


	3. Chapter 3: Retribution and Restraint

**Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin or any of its characters. All rights belong to Hajime Isayama.**

 **OOC: thanks for the feedback, reviewers. If you enjoy (or have issues with) this story, please review it, and I will learn from your responses. IMO my main issue is trying to ensure Levi does not go wildly out of character, and I think I have broadly avoided this so far, but I might be wrong and there may be other problems with my writing too. Please write about them. For the first part of this story, I expect I will be writing most of these chapters from Levi's perspective, but I do hope and intend to write more from Petra's viewpoint later on.**

 **The title of this chapter exceed's Fanfiction's character limit, so the name that appears at the top of the page is the abridged version. The full title of this chapter is written below.**

Chapter 3: Retribution, Restraint and a Race Against Time

Of course, he feared for Petra's safety, but a new fear had been growing in him ever since he'd heard the roaring stop moments ago. What if Eren had lost his battle with the female titan?

 _Then this would probably be a pointless exercise,_ Levi thought to himself as he moved through the forest, _and I should go back, as the mission of protecting him has probably already failed._

He refused to give into his fear, reminding himself that he could not give up on Eren - a member of the squad he'd failed to protect - until he saw the boy's dead body himself. _I know he returned alive from the body of a titan in Trost only weeks ago…_

Although he could no longer pinpoint the female titan's location by the sounds of roaring or combat - _either Eren has fled, or he's in the titan's power -_ he managed to track it using the sound of its footsteps. _It's running, as if it's afraid,_ he realised.

 _And it has every right to be. Retribution is coming._ Levi hunted it through the dense foliage, and the progressively louder sound of its footfalls reassured him that he was drawing nearer to it. Soon enough, he passed the headless corpse of a muscled, 15-metre class titan. _Freshly killed; definitely Eren's titan, but I can't see the boy in there._

He drew his blades, and noticed his hands were shaking ever so slightly. He did not know why; perhaps it was because he was afraid; perhaps it was because he was enraged. _No, I must not take revenge,_ Levi reminded himself, _nothing good will come of that. The mission has been compromised…what matters now is freeing Eren, and returning to the walls with those who still live._

" **Your hands are trembling because you're in great distress. It's a natural human reaction,"** a voice echoed in his mind. He almost sighed as he recognised it all too well. Every soldier who stayed out in the field long enough was left with mental scars, as anyone who spent a long time fighting man-eating giants eventually would. Having survived for over five years, his were worse than those of many other soldiers, and though he tried to hide them, he couldn't conceal them from himself.

The voice belonged to Kenny Ackerman. He'd said those same words to Levi over a decade ago, and as he gave chase to the female titan, Levi was reminded of the incident in which they were spoken.

—

They were cutting up the body. It had been a male in its twenties; a military policeman, well-dressed and handsomely fed. He'd tried to stop them when they were burgling a storehouse in the depths of the underground, asking Levi who he was and what he was doing.

That was a mistake.

The man's error had been to approach Levi in the first place, when he should have checked more thoroughly beforehand to see if the boy had any accomplices. The M.P.s never bothered to give more than a glance the ceiling, which was shrouded in darkness, and tonight, it hid none other than Kenny Ackerman himself.

The policeman's next mistake was to reach for his weapon when he spotted Kenny descending towards him. This was bound to fail, as the serial killer approaching him was simply too fast to be apprehended militarily by this point. It only served to aggravate Kenny and thereby increase the chance of death for the M.P.

Once Kenny had knocked the policeman to the ground, beaten him bloody and disarmed him, Levi ran over and held him in a chokehold – a planned tactic to neutralize interlopers in their heist. The boy was only 10, but when Kenny was done with a soldier, he could rely on Levi to control them for a time while they were in their exhausted - and sometimes crippled - state.

The policeman's third, and final, mistake was to have the bravery – or perhaps the stupidity – to call for help. His hopes of survival rested on either the mercy of Kenny – whose legend, well-known throughout the walled kingdom, suggested he had none – or on one of his colleagues being nearby. Dazed, he hadn't considered that Kenny could easily kill him before one of his comrades arrived even if one was nearby, and bet his life on the second option.

As it happened, he was the only officer on duty that night. There were supposed to be others on patrol, but the Military Police was notorious for a lack of diligence amongst its soldiers, and the guards assigned to this warehouse tonight had, with the honourable exception of this man, gone out to gamble away their ill-gotten bribes at a grimy pub some miles away.

So it was that Kenny had quickly slit his throat, his scream for aid gradually softening to a faint gurgle, and then to silence as the M.P. greeted oblivion. Levi and Kenny were forced to abandon a whole sack of goods they'd pilfered from the building, filling the bag with his body instead and leaving the warehouse with only half of their original stolen cargo.

Having taken it back to the place they called home, they had dumped the body in their cellar, and were now doing their best to prepare it for disposal. Life was hard in the underground district, but those suffering from acute starvation could, if desperate, purchase a bowl of broth for twopence from one of the many vendors who seemed to wander around aimlessly all day, their backs hunched, their faces cowled.

Everyone who'd been in the underground district for long enough knew that the ingredients of this extra cheap broth were whatever the soup vendors could get their hands on, and often such ingredients were provided by people who wanted to rid themselves of questionable organic remains.

Kenny had once explained to Levi that the vendors and criminals had an interdependent relationship: when a criminal was as poor as one could possibly be in the depths of this subterranean district, when they couldn't feed themselves, when they were on the run, they could always find enough to survive on when they knocked at the right door in the right alleyway. In turn, when they were successful, they would provide the sustenance to the human-dealing merchants required for future generations of killers, and so the cycle would continue.

Levi had never cut up a body himself, but, under Kenny's watchful eye, he was to learn another of the older Ackerman's lessons that day. He hated mess and meaningless death, so was sickened by the task facing him, but he did it anyway, the long, rusty blade provided to him being made ready to dice up the dead man.

He gagged when the soldier's internal organs greeted his sight, having emerged from the bisected body shortly after the first cut, and hesitated, despite the instruction he had been given to quarter the military policeman's corpse. His hands began to shake, first in small quaking movements, and then convulsing violently. He let out a small whimper, questioning internally why he was going ahead with dissecting a human being with hopes and dreams, family and friends.

"Is there an issue, Levi?" Kenny asked in a curious tone that was neither harsh nor understanding: just inquisitive. Levi knew that when he heard that tone, Kenny was at his most dangerous.

"No," he replied quietly, angling he knife in his trembling hand down towards the body. He still didn't have the courage to use it.

Levi felt a supportive hand on his shoulder. "Your hands are trembling because you're in great distress. It's a natural human reaction," Kenny's voice reassured him gently. The man had walked over to Levi in an instant, and was now standing over him with an empathetic expression etched onto his face.

Levi gulped nervously, not sure whether to trust Kenny's sympathetic behaviour or not. "R-really?" the boy responded.

"Yes," Kenny replied, his tone now laced with cruelty, "and you're going to evolve beyond that aspect of human weakness. You live with an Ackerman now…so you act as an Ackerman would." Levi's eyes widened as he registered the kick to the head being prepared just before it hit him in the face.

He fell onto his back, bleeding from his nose, and instantly curled up into the foetal position. It would help him endure the beating that was to inevitably come. When it began, Levi lost track of time, as he always did when experiencing what his surrogate father liked to call "tough love". With eyes tightly shut and hands pressed to his ears, he was only aware of his own existence by the feeling of each knock to a different region of his body.

Between blows, Kenny ranted at him, "This is how we live! It's not pretty; for most people, it's not even tolerable. However this world has no mercy, and if you want to survive in it, you should have none either: especially here, of all places, in this godforsaken cavern of a city, where the best you can do for yourself is gather together enough coin to get yourself to the surface and the sunlight. If you can't even cut up a corpse without breaking down, how are you going to kill those who hunt you? How are you going to live up to your name and your training? Answer me, boy!" 

The blood of the corpse had mixed with Levi's own on the floor of the cellar, but Kenny had made sure not to do any lasting damage. It was, Levi supposed, the murderer's sick way of showing that he cared about Levi to cause pain without inhibiting ability.

"I'll do it," he croaked from bloodied lips.

Kenny offered Levi a grin that stretched from ear to ear. It was sweet, too sweet; so happy it seemed to be imbued with menace. "There's a good boy," Kenny whispered unnervingly, patting him on the head. "Now, I'll hold your hand, it'll stop shaking, and we'll do it together this time," he explained as a parent would describe a simple task to a young child. "Alright?"

Levi nodded reluctantly; his desperation to avoid another hiding outweighed his disgust at cutting up the corpse into smaller, more manageable - _bite-sized,_ Levi thought, immersed in morbid thoughts - chunks. Later that night, he'd feel guilty and ashamed at what he'd done, but even in retrospect he knew that this was a better outcome than enduring another of Kenny's assaults.

On Kenny's part, the murderer felt only pleasure and pride in his boy. Levi had learnt his lesson, and learnt it quickly: no longer would his hands shake when he cut through flesh. It was a step on the path to becoming one of humanity's most formidable soldiers.

—

" **Now, I'll hold your hand, it'll stop shaking, and we'll do it together this time…alright?"** the voice echoed in Levi's mind. He could have sworn he heard it to coming from a position to his right, and he snapped his head around to check if this was the case.

There, flying beside him on wings of freedom, was Kenny Ackerman.

Levi gaped at Kenny; this was too surreal to be true. He could see right through the grinning serial killer, and yet he was there, travelling alongside his protégé, an inane grin on his face.

" **It is too surreal to be true,"** Kenny agreed, having seemingly read Levi's mind, **"and that's because I'm a figment of your imagination. I'm another result of this distress,"** he explained.

Levi turned his face towards his destination again. The female titan was now within sight, a silhouette in the distance to which he was giving chase. Without looking at the mental result of over five years of hell in the Survey Corps, a small voice in Levi's mind asked, _So, tell me, Kenny, what are you doing here, distracting me?_

" **Well, it's simple really,"** Kenny replied cheerily in Levi's brain, **"I'm your survival instinct, personified!"**

 _That makes sense,_ Levi mused, _his lessons have kept me alive where others would have – no, where others actually have – died._

" **So, when you go up against the female titan, which I'm going to tell you right now is a stupid and foolhardy idea – "**

 _That's not going to stop me doing it,_ Levi resolved, _it's central to the mission's objective. If Eren is still alive, he's in its power._

" **Very well, go ahead. I'll hold your hand though while you stab her, ok? We can't have a quavering blade when you're up against a titan shifter, now can we?"**

 _No. I can't believe that I'm hallucinating that you're here,_ Levi grumbled internally. _Why you, of all people?_

" **Because we're survivors, Levi…nobody else lasts as long as we do. I trained you to be an Ackerman, someone who doesn't play by the normal rules of life and death. Stick with me, and you'll live."**

 _Be that as it may, I have more important issues to deal with right now. The mission is the top priority._

" **Which is why you're going to straighten that arm."** Although Kenny then grasped Levi's hand, it didn't alter the soldier's balance at all; the trembling, however, stopped. _That must be my survival instinct's doing,_ Levi noted, _it can be_ _useful, though it's unpleasant now that it's manifested._

It was then that he noticed Mikasa, preparing to launch herself at the female titan.

" **You'll need allies if you're going ahead with the mission,"** Kenny barked at him, **" we haven't seen her in action yet so we don't know how good a fighter she is…"**

He sneered cruelly at Levi, and finished, **"…but let's face it, she could hardly be more killable than the last lot, so you take what you can get."**

Levi was sorely tempted to punch Kenny in the face at that point, but knew that the man flying beside him was but an elaborate mental illusion ensuring his own survival and also berating him for not following the behavioural code that had kept him alive for so long.

Levi grabbed Mikasa around the waist and yanked her to one side, away from the female titan.

"Wh-what are you - " she began to ask indignantly.

"Fall back for now," was his response, as he released her from his grasp. She seemed reluctant to obey this order, but deferred to Levi's authority for the time being.

" **Please do!"** Kenny pleaded in a voice that only Levi could hear from a mouth that only the captain could see, **"fall back for good. That titan could kill you…I mean us, that is."**

 _So could any other. I've already sacrificed enough lives to complete Erwin's task to render my own existence cheap._

" **A pathetic excuse for foolhardy actions such as this desperate attempt to complete a mission that is centred on a boy who's probably dead,"** Kenny complained, **"but clearly you…we…are immovable on this matter. Best to attack it now, then, while it's still recovering from the fun it had with your squad."**

 _Sound advice, Kenny. despite your poor choice of words…it seems to be slower than it was when I last encountered it. Perhaps it is tiring, as Eren was reported to have done in Trost._

"Maintain this distance," Levi instructed Mikasa. He still didn't recognise her, but she seemed to be a skilled soldier… _brave or mad enough to attempt to attack the female titan alone._

" **You'd better hold that thought, Levi. We'll be needing a new squad soon, after all."**

"It may be tired. It does not appear to be going very fast," Levi explained."He seems to have been bitten right out of the neck. Is Eren dead?"

 _He'd better not be, or all of today's casualties died for next to nothing,_ Levi thought, darkness clouding his mind. _That wouldn't be a first, though…in most of our expeditions, all the bodies ever do at best is strengthen the resolve of the those who remain._

"He's alive," Mikasa responded with utter certainty, "the target appears intelligent, and its goal seems to be capturing Eren. If it wanted him dead, it would've crushed him. The target is fighting to escape after going through the trouble of putting him in its mouth."

"Its goal may have been to eat Eren. If that's the case, he's in its stomach. It's more reasonable to assume he's dead," Levi countered, curious as to the motive behind her being so convinced of her own opinion.

"He's alive!" Mikasa insisted.

 _So that's how it is,_ Levi mused, _I see. Evidently, she cares an awful lot about him, to risk her life for a person who's almost certainly dead._

" **I take the alternative view: that she's utterly stupid,"** Kenny countered, **"her behaviour is possibly even more foolish than your own. She has nowhere near as much military experience as you, and still she went after it alone.**

" **She'll be dead within a few months,"** he concluded.

 _Statistically, you are correct,_ Levi noted, _but her desire to see Eren alive happens to coincide with the objective of the mission, so I shall play along with it, for now._

"I hope you are right," was Levi's response.

"If you'd only protected Eren, this wouldn't have happened!" Mikasa complained.

Levi did a double take when he heard those words. His first reaction was a grim series of thoughts: _She's right. If I had been there when I needed tobe, it's possible that everyone in my squad could have survived unharmed. I'm so sorry that I wasn't there for them – for any of them – when I needed to be. They put their trust in their comrades, and I let them down. If only I had protected Eren..._

He had thought that he had recognised this soldier, and her angry words then made him suspect that he knew her identity even more. He turned around to face her momentarily as they progressed towards their target, and his intuition was confirmed. He _had_ met this soldier before.

He muttered, "I see…you're the one from back then. Eren's close friend?" _You were the witness at the trial who was so displeased with me, weren't you?_ Levi questioned internally, _I can't blame you for being angry at what I did to Eren then._

The noticable widening of Mikasa's eyes at those words answered that question well enough.

Levi turned around to face his adversary once more, taking into account Mikasa's identity and abilities - _I read her report - Mikasa Ackerman's report - when she joined the Survey Corps,_ he remembered, _Erwin wanted every captain to read it._

 _It's not often we get one of the top ten graduates joining the Corps,_ he reflected despondently.

" **That's not so bad,"** Kenny murmured, **"she may be ignorant and as fragile as any other human being, but at least she will be better than the average titan fodder in our upcoming battle.**

" **Plus, she shares my name, and the name I gave you,"** he added, almost glowing with pride, **"so hopefully, she's got the ability in her veins. Imagine what she could do with a bit of old Kenny's special training…"**

 _That's not happening. The man's probably dead, you're just a survival instinct, and I'm not putting anyone else through that._

Before Kenny could reply that Levi was no fun, the younger man spoke to Mikasa: _"_ We'll limit ourselves to a single goal. First, give up on killing the Female Titan."

 _Retribution will not help the mission. It will not help anyone…no matter how much I want it,_ Levi reasoned internally, _instead, we must show restraint._

"It killed many of our comrades!"

 _It's as if she I didn't know that already,_ Levi thought, _or worse…that she assumes I don't care about the fallen._ His grip on his blades tightened slightly. He'd like to wreak vengeance on the female titan, he'd love to at least agree emphatically with Mikasa on her most recent point aloud, but he refused to acknowledge his weakness and deviate from the mission.

He was humanity's strongest, and right now, there was no-one he could admit his vulnerabilities to. The one person left in this world who truly knew him for who he was might be dying at this very moment, and he'd left her, alone and abandoned, for the sake of the mission. He wanted to hate himself for this, or perhaps hate Erwin for holding him back earlier when he asked to rendezvous with the rest of his squad; he wanted to turn around and go back for her as fast as he could every waking moment, and he wondered whether or not she had been eaten yet, or died from blood loss.

However, Levi would not allow himself to hate, or give in while the mission was still ongoing. He could surrender himself to his rage inside the walls in private, but not yet: he'd vowed to live a life of no regrets, so at this point in time, having abandoned Petra, he knew that the core objetive was the sole reason for his existence, until he could return to her. He could not afford to feel, as there was no heart left to give; the bloody remains that had survived five years in the survey corps lay embedded in Gunther's neck, in Eld's bisected body, in Oluo's shattered spine; the last surviving piece belonged to Petra's wounded form.

Not revealing even a hint of his true feelings regarding the female titan's killings, he retorted, "As long as it can harden its skin, we can't kill it. Do as I say. We'll pin our hopes on Eren still being alive, and rescue him before it leaves the forest. I will tear away at it…you draw its attention!"

Mikasa gave a simple nod of agreement; that was all that they had time for, before the operation to free Eren from the female titan began.

" **You'd better hurry,"** Kenny urged him, **"once this titan reaches open space, it will make quick work of you."**

 _My thoughts exactly,_ Levi reflected, _but that's no surprise, considering you are just a construct of my mind._

Kenny had the tenacity to look vaugely amused and offended, but said nothing in response, except for one simple phrase: **"You'd better not hesitate this time…we're going to cut her nice and deep."**

The youngest of the three Ackermans accelerated so as to position herself in front of the female titan, distracting Annie momentarily until Levi manoeuvred himself into an advantageous position behind her. From the periphery of her view, the titan looked at him, and he stared right back at her, eyes glowing with controlled malice. He couldn't afford to carry out retribution, and he had to exercise restraint, but he vowed he'd make quick work of this shifter if he could. For the mission, it was a race against time: either Levi and Mikasa freed Eren quickly enough, or the titan got out of the forest, and from then on it would be plain sailing for her.

 _There is another race against time, too,_ Levi realised, _if I don't complete this objective quickly enough, Petra could, and probably will, die, alone and unassisted. I can't afford to let that happen to her…not after I've allowed it to happen to so many others in my life._

Seemingly at the last moment, the female titan whirled around to throw a punch at Levi, but he was prepared for this eventuality. He used his momentum to hurl himself down her arm, slashing it open as he did so. **"That's my boy!"** Kenny shouted joyfully, steadying Levi's arm as he made to cut open the female titan's upper arm.

 _Actually, that was for Gunther,_ Levi cogitated, before thrusting his blades into the titan's eyes, shutting off her visual window to the outside world. She was now alone, in the dark, and the human inside her almost certainly felt very afraid indeed.

A part of Levi's mind derived comfort from this, whilst another part viewed this comfort with contempt. _That move was for Eld._

Levi rose into the air above the female titan, blades outstretched and glinting in the sunlight, as if he was some sort of divine avenger about to rain down death and judgement upon the condemned. _Brace yourself, titan. This one is for Oluo._ When he descended, he did so in a maelstrom of steel and gore, a series of precisely aimed strikes biting into tendons, hacking into muscles; crippling the female titan's defences.

In a matter of seconds, she'd collapsed against a tree, hands clasped protectively at the back of her neck.

 _Now you're on the defensive, female titan,_ Levi mused, _and my next move is dedicated to Petra._ _I'm going to dismantle your last line of security. You may well live to see another day, but by the time I'm done with you, you will know true fear._

He spun around the tree with blades flashing with red and silver, rending the flesh of the titan's arms until the ruined limbs hung limply at her sides. As it was now seemingly helpless, he considered going in for the kill, but couldn't gamble Eren's life on the possibility that she had no more tricks or abilities up her sleeve.

" **Good call,"** Kenny congratulated, **"I would rather enjoy cutting this one up…oh, the memories it would bring back…but she can harden her skin, call aberrants to her and maybe do even more than that. As your survival instinct, I'd say the potential gain from killing this titan here and now is not worth the risk."**

Preparing to act on his thoughts and cut Eren free, Levi noticed that Mikasa had just gone through the same thought process, and come to the opposite result. As she moved in to slice Annie's nape open, he saw the titan's head shift ever so slightly. It might have no sight, but it was listening.

 _That's a clever one,_ Levi realised, his mind seething with outrage, _I one day hope to see eventually what sort of ingenious, murderous bastard is hiding in that lump of flesh._ _The titans are not sentient, and are only another harsh feature of this merciless planet, but this one makes her murders consciously._

" **Oh well, she's in good company, then,"** Kenny quipped, **"don't forget about your dear old surrogate father!"**

 _I want revenge, but I must show restraint._ This phrase was repeated over and over in Levi's mind as he willed himself to become a paragon of self-control.

"Stop!" he shouted at Mikasa, noticing as Annie raised a hand to swat her aside, and wondering just how she'd dismantled each of his squad members.

Kenny moved through the air seamlessly alongside him with seemingly effortless manipulation of his 3DMG, and remarked morbidly, **"Make it through this, and I'm sure we can ask Eren later. He'll give you all the juicy details."**

Levi chose to ignore the cruel imaginary imposter pretending to be Kenny, and stepped on Annie's hand before it could reach Mikasa, shoving her out of its path in the process. This would not stop the titan for very long at all, but Mikasa did not need an extended period of time to register what was happening and move away.

" **My opinion of her is crystallizing,"** Kenny muttered, **"Advanced, but stupid."**

He snapped, **"But you know what's more stupid? Putting yourself in the way of that titan's hand! Get away before it's too late – "**

It was already too late. Annie's hand twisted, and Levi heard – and felt – something snap in his foot. He let out a small gasp of pain, and with much-reduced military capability, somehow managed to hurl himself past Annie's mouth.

" **I can't believe we're doing this,"** Kenny protested, flying alongside him, **"throwing yourself, as an injured soldier, towards a titan's mouth? That's more insane than me."**

Levi ignored him once again, and reached with his blades for Annie's jaw, slicing it in two places before flying to one side.

Kenny huffed, **"You just can't keep on ignoring your survival instinct like this. I can't believe we've lasted five years in the military!"**

"Eren!" Mikasa exclaimed.

Levi spun around to look into Annie's mouth, and there he was, his body covered in slime. Despite the ordeal he must have been through, Eren was alive, and somehow intact. Without hesitating, Levi went back towards Annie's mouth again to retrieve the boy.

" **What? Twice you just stroll up to a titan's mouth, in the space of five seconds? You really want us to die, don't you?"**

Having survived the risky encounter with the female titan's jaw for a second time, Levi pulled himself away from it, Eren, the mission's objective and possibly the fate of humanity tucked under one arm. He landed on a branch of a tree some distance away from the titan, next to Mikasa. "Hey! We're getting out of here!" he ordered.

"Eren…" was all she could say in reply, clearly relieved that he was alive.

 _That reminds me: I have urgent business to attend to. Time is still chasing me…a titan could be eating Petra right now, and there's nothing that she or I could do to stop it,_ he reminded himself, feeling sick with dread. Beyond the walls, there were so many truly horrible ways to die, and most of them were too terrible to be worth countenancing in the heat of battle.

That didn't stop the potential scenarios invading Levi's mind, but after years of hell, he wasn't sure if anything could.

He continued, "I think he's okay…he's alive! But filthy. Forget about it…we'll retreat. Don't lose sight of the core objective. Is it more important to get what you want? Isn't he an important friend?"

 _You're so damn lucky that Eren lived, safe and sound, to see another day, Mikasa,_ Levi thought enviously, _so you'd better appreciate his survival instead of chasing that monster. I've known too many soldiers, myself included, who don't know what they've got until it's gone._

As he looked at Mikasa, he wondered if she could be convinced, but knew in his heart that it was only right that she took this course of action. He'd lost sight of the core objective in his life, once, and abandoned his friends; ultimately, he did not profit by this course of action in any way. _No, not friends: siblings_ , he corrected himself, _It was all for financial gain and citizenship of Wall Sina,_ he lamented, _an even less understandable reason to leave those you love than wanting to kill one particular titan._

He thrust Eren into her arms, and said, "In any case, there is something I need to do in this forest before I leave."

Mikasa looked quizzically at him, but Levi knew that he didn't have the time to explain the situation. He proceeded. "If you're going to go back for the female titan, at least take Eren to the main scouting force and see Commander Erwin before you do so."

 _I'm working on borrowed time. First it was the mission's time, and now it is Petra's time. It does not belong to me, Mikasa, or any sort of explanation. Duty calls, and I must answer._

"Good luck and goodbye," he said curtly, before setting off back the way he came, without an excuse or an explanation. As Mikasa watched him leave, dumbfounded for an instant, Levi made his way back into the inky blackness of the forest, and was given a chilling reminder.

He couldn't see through the mist all those years ago, and when it finally cleared, all he spotted was what remained of Farlan and Isabel, and the aberrant that killed them. His vision did not extend far into the dense foliage of this forest of giant trees today, and he wondered what he would find when he reached the place where he'd left Petra.

Dispelling his doubts, Levi reassured himself that she was alive. When he returned, he told himself over and over in his brain, Petra would be alive; she _had_ to be alive.

Levi knew that the alternative, despite being a very probable outcome, didn't bear thinking about.


	4. Chapter 4

**An Update and an Apology**

 **Dear readers,**

 **As today is Petra's birthday, and an update on this story is overdue, I had planned to get the next chapter of this story typed up today. However, sleep, work, roleplays and other RL things have a habit of consuming my time, and so I will not be able to publish the next chapter today. I promise I will get it up online next week (and by that I mean as of tomorrow - next Sunday), as I will have finished some exams by then.**

 **However, the next chapter is progressing well in terms of writing it, and there is some more Levi x Petra content, which was somewhat left by the wayside in the last chapter. I hope that makes up for the delay.**

 **Apologies, regards, and high hopes for the next chapter being completed soon,**

 **The Might of Liechtenstein.**


	5. Chapter 4: Human Nature

**Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin or any of its characters. All rights belong to Hajime Isayama.**

 **OOC: as always, I urge you to read and review, whether you like this story or not! I apologise for spending so long writing this chapter, but here it is.**

Chapter 4: Human Nature

Levi retraced his route through the forest relatively easily, his survival instinct following him.

" **I can't believe we are doing this,"** Kenny complained.

 _I never leave a living soldier behind,_ Levi thought, _besides, I promised to myself and Petra that I would return for her._

" **Oh, how sweet,"** Kenny sneered, before ranting, **"this is a stupid idea. If she hasn't died yet, she's so injured that she will probably die soon enough, and even if she survives, she won't be worth the resources thrown at her to help her recuperate."**

 _She's a very capable soldier indeed,_ Levi reflected, _and worth the world to me._

" **Not worth your life!"** his instinct replied, **"come on, can't we talk about this? You need to get a grip! You're injured and we're travelling into titan territory, alone. Snap out of it!"**

 _I've made up my mind already, instinct,_ Levi replied internally, continuing through the trees towards his destination. It was true that his foot was wounded - he did not yet know just how badly - but he could continue using 3DMG for a time, at least.

Kenny growled in frustration, and said, **"Well, it's my job to convince you otherwise - "**

 _Begone._

The instinct sighed, and disappeared in a puff of smoke. _Well, that's a relief,_ Levi thought to himself, _although it's probably not a good sign of my own condition if I'm suppressing my own survival instinct while I'm in danger._

Eventually, he approached the place where he'd left her. _Left her to die,_ he condemned himself, fear starting to seize control of his mind as he wondered whether she'd died in his absence.

Levi stopped using his 3DMG and dropped to the forest floor when he saw Petra's body, which was still in the same place it had been in when he'd gone to free Eren. _She's breathing; thank goodness._

He ran over to it, and knelt down to pick her up. _Thank you for staying alive,_ he thought to himself. _I don't care for Kenny's teachings…we're going to prove them wrong today._

Levi tucked his arms under her prone form, and noticed that although she was still unresponsive to his movements and bleeding, there had been one change in her condition. _Her eyes are closed, and she seems to be unconscious,_ he realised, taking some small comfort from this. _Good. She needs rest._

As he picked her up carefully, he could barely stop himself from cringing at just how wet the jacket she was wrapped in seemed to be. _The blood has soaked right through it. This is awful._

 _This is definitely the worst state I've ever seen her in,_ Levi reflected dispiritedly, _even worse than during her first expedition._ He found his mind wandering back to that time.

—

The 28th expedition beyond Wall Rose yielded brutal results. Then again, every expedition involving a fresh batch of soldiers out of training had higher casualties than others. Levi supposed that this was because a certain number of troops ultimately could not cope with the world outside the walls, and were culled. _Like animals,_ he thought, feeling slightly sick as he rode past body part after body part.

The initial aim of the expedition - a modest one, in this case; the Survey Corps were caching supplies halfway between Rose and Maria, in preparation for the operation to retake the latter wall - had already been fulfilled, so now all that remained was to consolidate the forces scattered within this forces and retreat back towards human territory.

Levi's squad, currently consisting of himself, Gunther, Eld and Oluo, had dispersed; with most of the titans in the vicinity of the long-range formation eradicated, each of their talents would be best used if they split up and brought the scattered new recruits who had fallen out of formation back into it. It was thus that he found himself riding through the forest towards a clearing, from whence he'd recently heard sounds of commotion.

 _Perhaps a titan is still fighting there,_ he mused, _if so, I will be needed._

He reached the clearing just as the sound died down. _Have all the soldiers in this area been eaten now?_ he wondered morbidly; the sight before him said otherwise.

 _It's that Petra Ral,_ he realised, recognising the woman standing alone in the field. She held her sword arm out in front of her, and it was trembling. He wondered if it was due to the gash weeping blood down it, or the bodies strewn around her. _She's the last one standing,_ Levi noticed, _but I recognise the others, too._

The recognisable casualties were the new soldiers he'd seen ambushed during training a few weeks ago, and the decomposing corpse of an eight-metre class titan. It seemed the monster had killed almost everyone in its vicinity before being dispatched by Petra. _No doubt she knew these people,_ Levi realised, _not many join the Survey Corps each year, so soldiers fresh out of training in this branch of the military must be pretty close to each other._

The captain's dispassionate facial expression might not reveal it, but he felt more than a twinge of sympathy at what Petra was going through right now. She was clearly quite distressed: her eyes were red-rimmed from recently shed tears, her knuckles were white from the clenching of the fists around the swords they were holding, her lips was slightly parted due to shock, and her breath emerged from her mouth in ragged, haunted gasps.

The sight was familiar to Levi, because he had stood in her position only six years ago, an abormal's corpse behind him and what remained of his friends beside him. Noticing his presence within a few seconds, Petra lowered and then sheathed her sword, wordless relief at another living human being within her presence flooding onto her face.

"Ral," Levi said quietly as he stepped towards her, "we're leaving." He wanted to say so much more, but the words caught in his throat; thankfully they did so silently. There was, he reasoned, nothing useful he could say to lessen her pain or shock, though he might want to, and besides, the best he could do to increase morale amongst new troops such as her was keep up his old facade that had served him well for so long.

 _Ah, yes,_ he thought to himself bitterly, _appearances must be kept up, especially when they inspire: humanity's strongest, nothing more than a lethal automaton, an emotionless killing machine. If that illusion fires troops up in hard times, then it's what I must become._

"Captain Levi," Petra mumbled weakly, offering the man a disheartened salute before saying, "I apologise for being the only survivor in my own team. This is a pathetic outcome." She clearly did not know what else to say, still in shock at the violent events that had taken place around her. This was inevitable - even the soldiers who had prepared most meticulously for their first expedition were never truly ready to watch the titans dismantle human lives, hopes and dreams in front of them so easily.

Petra's limp salute and the hints of resignation and gut-wrenching torment in her voice snapped something inside of him, as he was reminded of Erwin's words to him all those years ago on his first expedition. _'So, you're the only survivor? How pathetic.'_ He simply had to speak to her, even if it turned out to be both uncharacteristic and unhelpful towards her.

"Nobody can ever predict the outcome of a military choice," he said in a calm voice, "and whichever choice you made, you cannot hold yourself accountable for the deaths of these others." Under normal circumstances, the first thing an officer would have done would be to congratulate Petra on her first titan kill, but this was entirely inappropriate given the number of dead in this particular unit of the Corps.

Petra nodded in silence, the youthful enthusiasm he'd noticed in her eyes when he'd first met her having been dampened by the death surrounding the pair of them. _It always does that to people,_ Levi realised despondently, _I just hope she doesn't have all the happiness squeezed out of her life by this._ Her mouth twitched ever so slightly - perhaps his words had caused an effect, after all - but she was still clearly distraught, even if she was less self-loathing than she had been a moment ago.

He rode over towards her, and said, "Climb onto my horse; you can ride behind me." The ginger-haired woman mounted up, putting her arms around his waist to maintain balance. He noticed that even her grip felt deadened: whilst her hands were exerting enough pressure to keep her steady, her fingers remained somewhat outstretched, as if hesitant to make human contact in case Levi, too, was dead.

 _We're getting out of here,_ he decided, feeling sickened by the messy sight of corpses and heady scent of large quantities of freshly spilt blood and internal organs. _This is nothing but a freshly made graveyard,_ he reflected grimly.

Within a moment of Petra mounting up, Levi kicked the sides of his horse, and they were off at a pace that quickly accelerated to a gallop: out of the clearing, through the forest, and past remains of their comrades strewn through the foliage and smoking corpses of titans. At first, he thought he imagined it, but Levi eventually was convinced that with every fallen human they passed by, Petra's initially loose grip around him tightened ever so slightly. He didn't mind at the slight discomfort he eventually grew to feel; after all, he could cope with a physical ache, but he wasn't at all confident that Petra could afford to have her fragile emotional state damaged any further.

 _It must be because I am a fellow survivor amongst all these dead soldiers,_ he theorised, _and I can't blame her for drawing emotional comfort from that._ Outside the walls, there was nothing but a fellow living human to reassure a panicked mind that there was still hope for survival left. Without another person nearby, many stranded soldiers could easily break down into hysteria, which could cost them their life if a titan was in their vicinity.

Riding in silence, they broke through and out of the tree line within the space of a few minutes, to be greeted by the welcome sight of the assembled Survey Corps survivors, ready to assume long-range scouting formation for their return to Wall Rose. Petra's grip instantly relaxed as she saw walking, living, breathing humans in relatively large numbers in close proximity to her.

As soon as Erwin caught sight of Levi, he waved and beckoned him over. Levi and Petra dismounted, and both reported to Erwin. The titan Levi had seen her standing over, apparently, had been abnormal, moving particularly quickly and lashing out in unpredictable directions. Her entire team, which had been chased away from the main formation due to its pursuit of them, had been dismantled within the space of five minutes once it engaged them in the clearing.

The commander of the Survey Corps offered Petra congratulations and condolences in a reserved tone, and a nod of thanks to Captain Levi for the work he'd done that day. For the captain, the rest of the expedition was but a blur, and all else that he remembered of the return journey was the look on Petra's face (when she had dismounted) of sheer gratitude mixed in with growing acceptance of the horror that had been witnessed earlier.

A short time before they reached Wall Rose, Petra rode ahead to speak to Captain Levi, now on a horse of her own. "Captain?" she asked in a hushed tone.

Levi turned his face towards her, and perhaps he showed his worry about her emotional state, which had persisted throughout the journey, a little too much, because his facial features opened up in uncharacteristic attentiveness as she spoke to him. "Yes?" he asked curiously.

"Thank you…for earlier," she said earnestly, "I now understand that I can't blame myself for my survival when my comrades died, but I could have broken down and died anyway if you hadn't gone out of your way to find stranded soldiers and endanger yourself in the process. You didn't have to do that."

His squad members, who were riding a small distance behind him, looked on in mild interest, surprised at the newcomer being so bold as to approach and talk to their captain without a vital military report.

"On the contrary," Levi replied firmly, "unless explicitly ordered to, all soldiers must go out their way to protect their comrades' lives. I did my duty, and nothing more. You don't have to thank me for that, Ral."

She nodded, and became lost in her thoughts as she pondered his words. "Farewell," she said, before pulling back into formation. He gave her a parting nod, and then began to wrack his own brains in search of a reason as to why he felt more worried about Petra Ral's emotional security than most soldiers'. She was no more likely to be scarred internally than many of the other new soldiers.

Levi supposed it was because he saw something of himself – no, something of what he should have been – in Petra. In place of her determination earlier, he'd felt cynicism; instead of only feeling her distress at the death of his comrades, he experienced the desire to murder Erwin Smith. Then, it hit him: whilst she had been damaged by today's events, unlike so many soldiers, she'd managed to retain her humanity in the face of death, and provoked an empathetic response from him, despite his constant attempts to appear emotionless to anyone else in the military.

As he left titan territory, the captain felt a warm glow in his heart – a rare occurrence for Levi – as he realised that he cared about Petra, because by retaining her own humanity through empathy and wearing it so openly, she'd brought back to him a piece of his own.

—

In the end, he had no choice but to hold her fragile, damaged body under one arm, despite his worries that this might endanger her spine. There was no other way of travelling using 3DMG; otherwise, Levi's movement would be too restricted for him to utilise the gear and carry Petra at the same time.

Once more, they made their way through the forest, passing the all too familiar signs of conflict and slaughter on their way towards civilisation. This time, however, there were a few key differences: they were travelling on wings, not horseback, and he was holding her, not the other way around. There were also similarities to the 28th expedition: Petra was close to death, this time in body if not in spirit, and she had reminded him of another very real aspect of his humanity due to her current state: fear.

Another myth about humankind's strongest soldier was that he was fearless. The titans were terrifying, but Levi had a knack for concealing his worries when in the presence of others; an ability which now proved useless as he was in a perpetual state of panic about whether or not Petra would expire. His thoughts raced through his mind, unhelpful speculations springing up that theorised what might happen if he made a slightly rough turn through the air, or if she might lose too much blood before medics could see to her, or what might occur in one of an almost infinite number of scenarios in which she would die in his arms.

If that happened, Levi knew that she would take all of the humanity she had given to him in little bits and pieces ever since the 28th expedition beyond Wall Rose away with her to oblivion, and he dreaded to think of the monster he'd become if that occurred. If Petra died, he might well live up to his own reputation, and become nothing more than an unfeeling, ruthless killing machine in the employ of the Survey Corps.

They reached the open space beyond the forest of giant trees in a matter of minutes, and Levi's fearful eyes caught sight of the Survey Corps survivors all too ready to leave for Wall Rose. The sight was welcome, as always; however, the captain couldn't help but notice that the number of survivors was even smaller than usual, almost certainly due to the female titan's attack.

As he landed and began to walk towards the troops, making a beeline for Commander Erwin's distinctive form, he thanked the stars that Petra, who was now held properly in both of his arms, was somehow still alive and breathing. He glanced down at Petra's face, her hair matted against her forehead due to being slick with her own blood.

Levi looked down at the woman who meant so much to him, and resolved to do the best he could to keep her alive. Kenny's parting letter had warned him that he could not care for others, in case he loved and lost. The greatest peace of mind was achieved through being devoid of human emotion, according to Levi's one-time trainer.

However, Levi knew Kenny all too well, and had seen that living by that man's moral code destroyed the human nature that defined who every person was, bit by bit. Levi could not afford to lose any more loved ones, but neither could he afford to give up his humanity. Ultimately, this meant only one living person could stop him from becoming the hollow, unfeeling shell of a man he was so widely rumoured to be, and that was Petra. For the umpteenth time since her encounter with the female titan, Levi found himself agonizing over whether or not she'd survive.

On the other hand, things were different in this instance. Petra's life was still very much in peril, but Levi felt a glimmer of hope: her condition seemed to be stable, they'd made contact with the main formation of soldiers (which no doubt included medics who could tend to her wounds), and the threat of the female titan had been neutralised for the time being.

Perhaps this world was no place for companionship; perhaps all of the soldiers of the Survey Corps were doomed to die, and leave the Captain alone and ashamed of himself. The world beyond the walls was a merciless place, but it would not claim Petra if Levi could help it. _It is my duty to keep her alive,_ he realised, _as it was all those years ago._

In that moment, Levi calmed his internal worries, and settled his thoughts. He reassured himself with an internal promise: _You were wrong today, Kenny and from this point on in my lifetime, you will be never be right again. Petra has disproved your theory, and she's all I need to avoid degenerating into a creature like you. As long as she lives, I can live in hope of recovering from the pain of losing my squad, and feeling happiness again._

 _If – no, when – Petra makes it through this expedition, I will retain my humanity._


End file.
